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Office
Polices
APPOINTMENTS:
My
services are available by appointment only. The length of the
appointment
time may vary
on the basis of services provided. Psychotherapy and
counseling sessions
are scheduled for 45-50 minute appointments known as the
"clinical hour".
Because your appointment is reserved for you, it is necessary
to charge for
appointments which are missed, unless missing an appointment
is occasioned
by circumstances that we would both define as an emergency.
Non-emergency
cancellations must be made at least 24 hours in advance.
Please be aware
that insurance companies do not reimburse you for missed
appointments.
TELEPHONE
MESSAGES:
As
we work together, you may notice that I do not accept phone
calls while I
am with clients
unless my pager signals that the call is an emergency. During
those times and
at other times during the day, evening, or night, my phone
messages are
received by my answering machine. I check for messages at
different intervals
throughout the day, and am able to return most of my calls
on the same day.
If
your message needs to be responded to on an emergency basis,
you may
call my paging
service. When I am on vacation, or otherwise out of town,
another psychologist
will be on call and his or her telephone number can be
obtained through
my answering machine by dialing my regular office number.
For emergencies
after 8:00 p.m., please make use of either Waterbury Hospital
Crisis Center
at 573-6500 or the emergency rooms at either St. Mary's or
Waterbury Hospital.
I
do not charge for brief (5 minutes or under) telephone contacts.
You should
be aware, however,
that I do charge for extended telephone consultations on
a prorated basis
similar to my therapy session rate. Your insurance company
may not cover
these calls.
INITIAL
CONTACT:
Your
initial appointment with me is an evaluation session. During
the initial
session I will
ask you to describe those problems and concerns that caused
you
to schedule the
appointment. I will also ask questions about your problems and
about your personal
history, which will help me to form a comprehensive view
of the nature
of your difficulty, and make initial hypotheses about its probable
cause and treatment.
In the initial session I will make an assessment as to
whether your
problem is one that is likely to benefit from my services. If
I feel
that other services
may be more beneficial, I will help you to locate and select
those services.
The initial session also provides you with an opportunity to
get
to know me, and
to decide whether you believe we could work together for
your benefit.
As
part of the initial evaluation, clients are asked to complete
a questionnaire
that serves as
a data base. The questionnaire contains questions about one's
biography, current
health status, and other information that may prove helpful
in the course
of diagnosis or treatment. If any questions appear to you to
be
too sensitive,
or if you feel uneasy filling them out, feel free to leave them
blank, and tell
me about it when you turn the questionnaire in.
TREATMENT:
Clients
often ask me what "type" of psychotherapy I practice. The answer
to
that question
is complicated, and is perhaps best answered by "it depends".
My
own belief is
that different types of problems benefit the most from different
types of therapy,
and that a therapist who offered the same treatment for
every
problem would be doing his clients a disservice. With some clients
I am
apt
to use a more "behavioral" or "cognitive" focus with an emphasis
on
problem-solving,
adaptive coping, and altering maladaptive thought and
behavioral patterns.
With other clients I may focus more on increasing
self-awareness
and the degree to which they can be in touch with their
emotions. With
yet another type of client it may be more important to focus
on
past trauma in
order to facilitate recovery. I will be happy to discuss the
method I am using
with you at any time, and explain how I selected it, and the
pros and cons
of that approach as opposed to other approaches. If you have
any beliefs about
the way therapy ought to proceed with you, I would be
happy to listen
to them and take them into consideration. Whatever methods I
may use, I always
view psychotherapy as a dialogue in which the therapist and
the client discuss
the client's deepest and most important concerns in an open
and authentic
manner.
Every
client is an individual, and every problem is unique, so that
it is
impossible to
specify in advance how many sessions will be needed to resolve
a problem. You
should be aware, however, that most problems need more
than "a couple
of visits" to resolve. (If your problems were that easy to fix,
you
would probably
not be coming to a psychologist's office in the first place).
While many problems
can respond to just several weeks or months treatment,
there are other
complicated or recalcitrant problems that can take several
years to resolve.
There are also chronic conditions that may require lengthy
follow-up. Please
feel free to talk with me about my expectations for the length
of your treatment.
Every
treatment can have side effects which are unpleasant, and this
is as true
of psychotherapy
as it is about medications. Psychotherapy is not risk-free.
The
risks of psychotherapy include the experience of intense and
unwanted
feelings including
sadness, anger, fear, guilt, or anxiety. It is important to
remember that
these feelings may be normal and natural, and an important
part of the therapy
process. Other risks include recalling unpleasant life events,
facing unpleasant
thoughts and beliefs, increased awareness of feelings,
values, and experiences,
and the alteration of an individual's ability or desire
to deal effectively
and harmoniously with others in relationships. In therapy,
major life decisions
are sometimes made including decisions involving
separations within
families, the development of other types of relationships,
changing employment
settings, and changing lifestyles. These decisions are a
legitimate outcome
of the therapy experience as a result of an individual
calling into
question his/her own beliefs and values. As your therapist,
I will be
available to
discuss any potential negative side effects of our work together.
PSYCHOLOGICAL
ASSESSMENT:
In
addition to psychotherapeutic services, I also perform psychological
assessments.
At times I may suggest an assessment in the course of
psychotherapy,
when I believe that the results of testing may help the
progress
of the therapy. I also provide testing for persons who are not
psychotherapy
clients at the request of third parties. Psychological
assessments
are often requested by area physicians and lawyers who
are
seeking help for their clients,
by employers or rehabilitation agencies
seeking
to assess fitness for employment,
or by adoption agencies seeking
to
determine psychological readiness
to adopt. In the course of psychological
assessment,
I often make use of a variety
of tests including intelligence tests,
projective
personality tests and psychological
inventories. When a third party
requests
an assessment, I furnish a written
report to that third party. I am
also
always available to provide a
feedback session to the person I have tested
upon
request.
TERMINATION:
Termination
of psychotherapy may be initiated by the client or the therapist.
I
request that
if a client is unilaterally making the decision to terminate
therapy,
that there be
a minimum of seven days notice in order that a final termination
session(s) may
be scheduled to discuss the reasons for termination.
Termination itself
can be a constructive and useful process. If any referral is
warranted, it
will be made at that time.
CLIENT'S
RIGHTS:
At
any time clients may question and/or refuse therapeutic or diagnostic
procedures or
methods, or gain whatever information they wish to know about
the process and
course of therapy.
Clients
are assured of the confidentiality of information they divulge
in therapy
within the limits
allowed by Connecticut and Federal law. Connecticut law
mandates that
I break confidentiality in order to protect a client or a third
party
from injury or loss when I have reason to believe that a client
presents a
danger to himself/herself
or others. I must also report suspected child abuse or
neglect, or the
abuse or neglect of an elderly person to the appropriate state
agencies. My
records or I may be subpoenaed by the court in certain legal
cases (e.g. criminal
cases in which you have entered your psychological status
as a defense,
or civil cases in which you have waived confidentiality). While
most state courts,
including Connecticut's, recognize psychotherapeutic
sessions as privileged
communication, federal courts are only just beginning to
establish rules
in this regard.
Additionally,
I may release sufficient information to pursue delinquent accounts
to
a collection agency. Any other release of information requires
your written
consent.
I may not release information, for example, to your relatives,
friends,
employers,
doctors, the police without your specific written consent, unless
one
of the exceptions listed above is involved. In the case of therapy
involving
multiple
clients (e.g., marital, family, or group therapy), the written
consent of
all
the clients must be obtained, or the information will be carefully
screened to
reveal
nothing of the involvement of the parties who have not given
their
written
consent. I may also release your diagnosis, dates of service,
and other
pertinent
information to your insurance company if you choose to use your
insurance
to help pay for the cost of psychological services. Please take
note
that
many managed care companies used by the insurance industry require
some
direct clinical management by the managed care company. If your
insurance
benefit is managed by a managed care company, it may be necessary
for
us to work together with one of their case managers to determine
the
nature
of your treatment, and therefore, may have some impact on
confidentiality.
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